Like this:

I changed the theme. I think it’s a push for me to start writing again.

I’m also going to write really honestly.

Here are some truths.

I miss The Girl. I am pretty sure she knows this. I’ve never stopped loving her, though I fear her intensely because at one time, she had the power, and used it to try and hurt me. It worked. I’d love to have a relationship with her, but I also fear it. Trust and all.

I am moving on in life after so many losses, but in all honesty if I die today, I am pretty OK with that. I don’t think I am courting death, but maybe I am. I’m not going to the doctor and I have some pretty serious things going on with my body. Do I ignore it longer and go till I drop, or do I go to the doctor?

I’m not really into more of the same. I have kind of had enough of the loss.

I am probably more closed off than ever, because to let anyone in that close would mean to trust, and I am very, very, very careful about who I hand actual trust to.

On the other side, I know the things I have experienced, seen and felt, to be true. It’s just that life hit me so hard I fell off the path. I’ve not gone back to that same hateful person, but there is this wall of protection around me and when you live like that, you aren’t really living at all. You’re sitting around, waiting for it to be done. My life has felt like the last act, of a bad play, that will not fucking end.

But still I am waiting. I don’t know for what, but I am waiting.

I’m thinking I know what I personally need to do, but I have procrastinated because to jump back into it means work and I know that with so much hidden emotion and denied feeling, it’s going to be heavy. It can’t be any heavier than keeping all this shit inside me, can it?

There are things I am totally happy about also.

I love my little apartment. I love that the things I do in my life, are mine. I do them when I want and no one criticizes me, tells me I am wrong, disapproves, or hits me.

I love my few friends I have kept. These are the people I trust and am comfortable with.

Yesterday, I read something I wrote a few moths before the stroke. How odd. As things were getting better and I was happy because of Mr. Yummy, my move, my job, my soaring spiritual awakening, there was a point I admitted I feared what was coming. In all honesty I seriously thought The Girl was about to make an appearance and I wasn’t sure I could do it. That would have been so much easier than losing Mel, Mr. Yummy and Arie. All within a short time span. Back to back. It felt so cruel. it made me ask if I was a good person? I sort of began to doubt my value. I forgot I am what I am and deserve what I deserve, as do you.

I lost security, my soul-mate, my strongest supporter, my confidant, my partner in crime, my favorite reason to laugh, my trust in many things, mainly letting anyone love me or get close enough that I might get hurt if they go away, the comfort of realizing that someone important has gone away, but thank the Creator they didn’t die and my ability to sit almost everyday and write.

I miss that creative outlet, but I realized that I read Mel EVERYTHING I wrote. My writings were part of our hours long conversations. In hindsight, it’s like in my mind I was always writing with her as my audience. I only read my writing to one other friend (and of course, my mother). I read it to no one now.

I am a different person today.

I have made a new friend. I’m tentative and cautious. I haven’t called her a friend to her face yet, but I love her. She’s my girl I have been the most honest with about who I am. She is my head expediter at work. There are only two of us who do this job as well as driving. She was out all week while her kids were on Spring break. Work, without her on a slow day is doable, but work without her on busy days or glitchy paperwork and labeling days SUCK. Yesterday was one of those days. I was so frustrated at having a work ethic so different from others around me. 90% of our mistakes could be eliminated if drivers checked their paperwork so they didn’t just take the food on their shelf assuming what was there, was all theirs. Mistakes do get made and when the expediters check and release the food for drivers to pick, the drivers sometimes help shelve the food. Sometimes I make a shelf mistake, sometimes Nette does, and sometimes drivers do. Check your pack slips to the food on your shelf as you load your van.

Nette text today saying she would be in Monday and she knew I must be burned out after a week without her. I updated her on yesterday and how I got so frustrated I went out to smoke and cried. Beneath it all was the old habit and desire to call Mel and vent to her all the anger and get it out, without saying shitty things to people I mostly like and have to work with. She came back with…”Well I’m not Mel, but I’m Nette and I always have an ear to listen and to vent at.”

It touched me and made me smile to feel like I have a friend again. She’s right. She’s not Mel and I wouldn’t want her to be. I like her as Nette.

Life does go on after a death like that, but for me it is different. It is…less, because I learned so much and lost so much.

Do I miss Mr. Yummy? No, I miss the idea of him like we were years ago, but that guy is long gone and the guy in his place is not the guy for me as I was not the woman of twenty years ago. Now I know.

Do I miss the living people I have lost? Some I do, some I don’t. That’s all I will say about that, because anything I say, could be falsely used against me because the WRONG people would think what was said about another, was said about them. Story of my life and without that kinda confusion, my life is simpler.

Two year and three months later, I am still crying. Not every day, but more than I imagined I would. I think the only thing that would impact me as much would and will be when my mother walks to the Creator. But today, she is here and I let her love me.

I met Jake’s girlfriend, Rachel last night. She reminds me of you. I can tell she isn’t going to take Jake’s shit. Initially, my instinct, is to like her, because I am seeing Jake be happy in a way I haven’t seen since he has become a man.

Initially, she is quiet and reserved. She watches a lot. She’s no dummy and I think she will be good for Jake. I hope they found something with each other. They are very cute together.

I gave the boys their key chains last night and they both got three of your candles. I think they like them. Dylan is fine with a tag that says “My Hero” and Jake is fine with one that says, “My Immortal”. I also told them I’ll order one for Tristan that has a tag that says, “Mama”, that they will hold it for him till he comes back so he knows he was never forgotten.

It’s only 5:26 AM and I have been teary three times already. I’ve managed to keep it very below the surface, even as Dylan hugged me extra long last night, in that special way you must have just fucking loved. To see the compassion that he can give as a man, compared to the black out rage he displayed as a child is really a beautiful thing Mel. You would be nothing but proud. I am proud to tell the universe, you did a good job with the kids. Most of their good traits, are yours. They both have Jim’s physical work ethic, so there, I said something nice about him.

We all miss Tristan and think of him often. I make sure I call Mik, Kiki sometimes. It makes her sad, but it feels good too, because someone other than she and her two brothers remember, there is Tristan. We see the injustice his father has done to him by removing him totally from their lives and it angers me to know Skeeter is all over him. She has a right, she is his Grandma, but you know what I am saying.

I made they boys and Rachel, enchiladas last night. They went home so Jake and probably Dylan could do their shopping and do their own Xmas eve thing, but they are coming back this afternoon for a turkey dinner. As long as they will have me, I will have them on this day each year. They will get families and eventually break away, but I imagine I will always have a Holiday invite to their homes. I will take them up on it. I love being Auntie. It is the second best gift you ever gave me. Your love and trust being the first.